


The Billy Series

by sunsetmog



Category: Lord of the Rings RPF
Genre: M/M, kind of, meta of a sort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2004-01-30
Updated: 2004-01-30
Packaged: 2017-10-30 20:47:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 16,989
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/335893
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sunsetmog/pseuds/sunsetmog
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Billy and Dom gently mock the unrealistic parts of fic whilst slowly falling in love.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Billy Series

**Author's Note:**

  * For [kraken-wakes](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=kraken-wakes).



> Originally posted January - April 2004 [here](http://sunsetmog-fics.livejournal.com/3298.html) at my fic journal.

**One: Billy is Pedantic**

The scene: Dom is reading the paper, _Neighbours_ on in the background, feet up on the coffee table. Billy is hunched up in front of the computer, sighing periodically and wrinkling his nose. 

"Ok, I concede. What is up with you?" Dom's attention is dragged away from Steph and her bad taste in hats by the increase in volume and frequency of Billy's sighs. 

"It's these sodding fics," Billy admits, not tearing his eyes from the screen, "They're driving me insane."

"Uh-huh." Dom rolls his eyes, and wishes he had never asked.

"Listen to this: _Billy is pushed back onto the bed by the Brit,_ \- that's you, Dom, - _and because he's wanted this for so long, all the Scot can do is whimper as Dom's mouth crashes down onto his, and the feel of his tongue is like nothing on earth..._ 'The Scot'? How can they define us by our nationalities at an intimate moment like that?"

"That's what's pissing you off?" Dom shakes his head and turns back to the TV, where Joe is teaching Summer how to box. 

"I just wish they wouldn't, that's all, it really really pisses me off."

If that's all Billy can find to be annoyed about, Dom feels like Billy may well have missed the point.

**Two: Dom is trying to watch TV**  
The scene: Dom is eating marmite on toast watching late night repeats of _Trisha_ ; Billy is sat in front of the computer again making noises that may well resemble snorting, but **do not in any way** resemble a small snuffling squirrel. A fact that Billy is eternally grateful for. 

Eventually, the choking noises piss Dom off to the extent that he starts flicking his breadcrumbs at Billy from his resting place on the sofa. "Would you bloody shut up? I'm missing the storyline here."

"I'm sure you'll pick it up soon enough," Billy repies equivocally, not turning around from the screen.

"Don't tell me," Dom sighs, "it's those fics again."

"They just drive me up the wall," Billy complains, "listen to this: _By the time Billy got home from the set, he was exhausted. All he wanted to do was curl up on the couch, watch a movie he'd seen thirty times before, and eat his way through a huge tub of Rocky Road._ Have you ever seen me curl up? And what the fuck is Rocky Road?"

"Ice cream, I think." Dom is trying really hard to pay attention to the justification Janine is attempting to give to Trisha about why she slept with her boyfriend's mother.

"It gets better," Billy tells him, and Dom raises an eyebrow, because Billy is never off that sodding computer now, he's flaming addicted to the thing, "Guess what movie I curl up and cry to?" 

"Cry to?" Dom shrugs, "Dunno. Last film I cried at was _Resident Evil_."

Dom is rewarded by a cushion hitting him square in the face.

"Fuck off. This bloody fic has me feckin' howling to _Titanic_!"

Dom snorts. " _Titanic_! If only they knew what you really cried over..."

"Dom..." Billy warns, and there is another cushion poised for take off.

"About that time I found you crying over _Watership Down_..."

"I had something in my eye." 

"Yeah right. The ickle wickle bunnies dying had absolutely nothing to do with it." Dom turns his attention back to the TV. "I don't know why you read those things if they get you so riled up."

Billy snorts again, and Dom turns the volume up.

**Three: Billy is going insane**

Dom can't help but laugh; Billy has bought a laptop so he can escape the tedium of hunching over the desk in the corner, and can, instead, relax on the sofa, the internet cable draped across the coffee table. 

"Wouldn't it have been cheaper to just buy a new office chair or something?"

"Sod off." Billy is concentrating on the screen, his brow furrowed. "This is much more practical. I needed a new computer anyway, that one's about to kick the bucket."

Dom raises an eyebrow; he is sure that the computer is less than two years old. He shrugs, "The laptop is very erm... aesthetically pleasing."

"Aesthetically pleasing?" 

"I was going to say 'pretty', but I didn't think it would be appropriate." Dom reaches for the remote and checks to see if the channel four news has started. It hasn't, which gives him five minutes to catch up on the latest _Hollyoaks_ storylines. 

He's interupted from Izzy's rather swizzy new hairstyle by Billy's loud, gutteral, "Gaaaaahhh." 

"What the fuck...?"

"Listen to this," Billy groans, _"Billy and Dom were flying into London, England. They had a five hour break before catching another airplane up to Glasgow, Scotland._ Would that be to differentiate this Glasgow from the other Glasgow that Billy might be flying to? Or would it be because this writer is too stuck up her own arse to realise that if Billy Boyd were flying home, he'd be flying to Glasgow, Scotland, and therefore the need to contextualise his geographical position would be nullified and therefore defunct?"

Dom turns the volume up. "You do realise that you've started to refer to yourself in the third person, don't you?"

"Shut up. I was talking about the character."

"You are the character. You're one and the same person. You are also going completely insane."

"It's fiction, Dom. Therefore the need to correct basic grammatical and storyline errors is required." Billy sighs at the stupidity of it all, clicking to scroll down.

"Which begs the question, why are you so fussed if they get the details wrong? It's not as if they're getting everything else right, is it? I mean, they get the basic stuff wrong." 

"Like what?"

"Like assuming we're shagging, for a start." Dom reaches for the _Radio Times_ and tries to concentrate on the TV.

Billy narrows his eyes and turns his attention back to the screen.

**Four: Billy plays a game**  
Dom comes in from Tesco to find Billy on the floor flicking bits of popcorn at his laptop, which is lying, half closed, on the coffee table.

Dom tries not to ask, but finds the temptation too hard to bear, "Um... Billy?" 

"Uh-huh?" Billy has run out of popcorn to flick and has now opened the tiddly winks box to start on the counters.

"What the bloody hell are you doing?" 

"Playing tiddly winks," Billy replies patiently, as if _Dom_ were the idiot here. He's concentrating on the pieces in front of him, biting his lip.

Dom raises an eyebrow. "You've completely and totally and utterly flipped, Bill."

"I haven't. The counters may have though." Billy flips the counter right into the middle of his keyboard, and he hisses, "Yeeesssss."

"Billy... You're playing tiddly winks with your computer. It's not a valid opponent, so you're likely to win. Hands down."

"Well, you weren't here to play with," Billy doesn't look up from his game. "Plus, I'm not playing tiddly winks with my computer; I'm flicking things at my computer. I'm hoping the bad fic will decide to go away all of its own accord."

Dom closes his eyes. "The bad fic?" He asks quietly, already wishing he had just nodded, accepted, and walked into the kitchen with his carrier bag.

"In it, you call me _Billy baby_ all the time." 

"Oh. Right."

"And you try and shag me whilst I'm on the phone to Elijah. And Viggo. And I whimper. A lot. And make small snuffly noises. Am I really that submissive?"

"Um..."

Billy flips another counter. It ricochets off the screen and lands on the delete key. "I mean, I spend the whole story behaving like some little kid. It's almost disgusting. I'm sure if I could get to the end of the fic without my brains seeping out of my ears, I'd find a scene where you required that I call you Daddy."

Dom replays the moment he entered the house, and wishes he'd decided to go back and buy a paper. He should never have asked. Bad decision on his part. "Daddy?" He can't help himself.

"In the same sentence as 'Billy Baby'." Billy finally looks up from his game. "Now do you see why I'm condemned to flick things at the laptop?"

Um... No. "Do you want a cup of tea?"

"Go on then. Make sure to remove the tea bag this time."

Dom sticks his head back round the living room door. "I only forgot once." 

"Yeah, yeah yeah. And you know I'm going to keep bringing it up for the rest of eternity..." Billy goes back to his tiddly winks.

**Five: In which Billy makes tea**  
Dom, like most other normal people, is trying to read the Sunday papers and understand just what the implications of the Hutton Report actually are, whilst eating his way through a packet of Tesco value ginger biscuits. If it weren't for the fact that it was clearly Billy's turn to make the next pot of tea, Dom would be dunking said ginger biscuits into a steaming cup of PG tips. To this end, he has been making rather loud grunts and clearing his throat in the general direction of Billy, muttering, "My, I am getting thirsty. It's been ages since someone made a drink round here." 

But Billy, as per usual, is engrossed in his laptop and completely ignores Dom. 

This means that Dom must take drastic action if he wants a cup of tea any time before the oceans dry up and the sun explodes, so he pokes Billy with a long finger, just below the rib cage. 

"What the fuck did you do that for, you nutter?" Billy asks, squirming away from Dom and rubbing his side.

"I'm thirsty." Dom tells him, the paper rustling as he manoeuvres into a more comfortable position on the sofa. "I need a cup of tea."

"You know where the kettle is," Billy tells him, and for emphasis, rubs his side again.

"It's your turn, you lazy fuck," Dom pokes him again, raising his eyebrow, "And I'm going to keep bloody poking you until you get off your fat arse and into the kitchen."

"My arse is not fat, you cheeky sod."

"I wouldn't know, because you haven't moved off the sofa in days. Go and make me a cup of tea, Boyd."

"What did your last servant die of?" Billy grumbles, shifting. "I was just in the middle of a really awful fic." Still moaning, he heads into the kitchen, where Dom can hear the age old sounds of tea preparation. 

Dom raises an eyebrow, the logic forcing him to speak, "If the fic is truly that awful, shouldn't you be glad of a reason to tear yourself away and do something else?"

Billy's head appears around the kitchen door. "Train wreck syndrome." 

"What?"

"Or, perhaps, Car Crash Syndrome. When you're on the motorway and there is a crash on your side of the road, it's guaranteed that there will be delays on the other side as well, as everyone slows down to have a good look." Billy rolls his eyes, as if Dom is the stupidest person on the planet.

For a second, Dom wonders if he perhaps is. He wonders if there is even a vague possibility that any of this will make sense when he pieces the evidence together. "Reading the fic is like watching a car crash?"

Billy's disembodied voice floats back from the kitchen, where the rattle of ceramic indicates that tea is forthcoming. "Yep. Apparently you are addicted to anti-depressants and I am the only person who can help you through this."

"Anti-depressants?" Dom sighs, and reminds himself in future to make his own cups of tea and refrain from making conversation with people who are clearly mad. 

"Uh-huh. But that isn't the bad part."

"It isn't?" 

"Nope. It's a songfic. The tragedy of your addiction is complemented by the presence of Celine Dion."

There are so many elements of that sentence that Dom doesn't understand, he wonders if Billy has suddenly started speaking Gaelic and Dom hasn't noticed. So he says nothing, and hopes Billy will start speaking English (or, well, Scottish) again.

"And it gets even worse," Billy explains, arriving at the coffee table with a teapot and two mugs. His teapot has pictures of rabbits on it. Dom pinches himself to make sure he is awake and this isn't _Dom's Adventures in Wonderland_. 

"Worse?"

"Yep, chapter two is the Backstreet Boys." Billy sinks back into the sofa, "I mean, how can I possibly take a fic seriously if the music is so distracting? It is quite clear that I am not the sort of person who owns a Backstreet Boys album. I would think that it is also quite obvious I don't listen to Celine Dion. How can I immerse myself in the angst-fest if I'm always thinking, "My heart will go on" or whatever shit chapter two is full of?"

Dom grins, mostly because he still doesn't get what Billy is on about, but could at least understand elements of that sentence, "Did you just say 'angst-fest'?" 

Billy has the grace to blush. "I might have done."

"Thought so." Dom smirks, and reaches for his ginger biscuit, "Billy, you are a certified fan girl. Well done."

"Shut up." 

Dom is still grinning as he turns his attention back to _the Observer._

Billy pretends not to notice.

**Six: Where Billy Wishes He'd Kept The Information To Himself**  
The scene: Billy is perched on the kitchen table, his laptop open in front of him. The internet lead is draped across the open doorway in a manner that suggests that Billy (or Dom) is more than likely to trip over it at some point that evening, and then swear very loudly and quite profusely. It is, however, unlikely that either of them will yell 'bullshit' as this is a typically American expletive and not really that popular over this side of the sea (not ocean! And certainly not pond). Dom is making dinner—spaghetti and his own speciality Bolognese sauce, which appears to involve celery, bacon and considerable amounts of red wine. He is at the kitchen counter, chopping onions, humming to himself whilst onion tears run down his face and his eyeliner smudges. Occasionally, with a sly glance across the room at Billy, he breaks into verses of old Rat Pack songs, to which Billy sticks two fingers up at him and tells him to bugger off. 

Dom raises his eyebrows, "Considering I'm just knocking up a meal that is guaranteed to knock your little cotton socks off, Boyd, I'd consider rephrasing that last statement. Do you really want me to get lost?"

Billy grumbles something that may well have been a 'no', but could just have easily have been 'dick'. 

"Sorry, I didn't quite catch that, Bills." Dom cups his ear towards Billy and taps his foot, waiting. "Do you really want me to stop cooking up this gastronomic feast and leave?"

"No." Billy narrows his eyes. "I like your cooking, and even if I have to put up with your _terrible_ singing to get a meal round here, it's a small price to pay."

"Oi, my singing is not terrible, thank you very much." Dom, who is trying his best to look affronted whilst wearing an apron (sporting a photo of a man in a kilt suffering the effects of a very windy day), flicks a stray piece of onion across the kitchen. It lands smack-bang in the middle of Billy's screen, and begins a half-hearted slide down towards the battery light. 

Billy, who currently considers his laptop his pride and joy, is beginning to look seriously pissed off. "Monaghan..." he warns, (or perhaps growls is a better word).

Dom purses his lips, and picks out a particular strip of onion from the pile on his chopping board. "What?" For a second, he considers his choice of onion, and then chucks it across the kitchen towards the laptop. Instead, this time, it hits Billy square in the forehead. 

"Dominic!" Billy howls, lobbing the onion back in the general direction of Dom. "You're going to bloody pay for that."

Dom slaps a hand to his forehead, "Oh god, no, I might have to pay for that?" He sneaks a sidelong glance across at Billy, "How will I cope? How will I ever afford the repayments?"

"Stop taking the piss." Billy carefully picks the onion off his screen and deposits it in the overflowing bin behind him. "I know just how to get you back..." Billy taps a few words into his laptop, and grins. Some would call it an evil grin, but they would underestimate the true power behind the smile, "I've got just the thing to show to you. It's truly, truly awful."

Dom blanches, and considers his options. Appealing to Billy's merciful side, he throws himself onto his knees, and begs. "Please, Billy, anything but another bad fic, I don't think I can cope. Please don't read me more fanfiction, my brain hurts and my eyeballs will melt and then I'll just be a big pile of slobbery innards on the floor, and then I won't be able to finish cooking you dinner..." and for good measure, Dom bats his eyelashes. 

"Don't you worry," Billy winks, and slides the laptop round so that Dom has the glory of being able to see the whole screen, "This isn't a fic. This is much, much worse. And I don't know why you've started to think that batting your eyes at me is going to make a blind bit of difference. It doesn't."

Dom narrows his eyes at Billy, then attempts to focus on the screen, all the while contemplating what could possibly be worse than the excerpts Billy has been spouting here, there and everywhere for the past God-knows-how-long. 

He gulps. 

He covers his face with his (onion smelling) hands and peers through his fingers.

"My eyes, my eyes," he finally manages, mumbling, "Um, what the fuck is that?" ten seconds later, after he's forced his jaw closed. 

"That," Billy says, with all the pride he can muster for such an occasion, "is a photo of me and you, manipulated to look like we're having sex."

"That is _not_ a photo of you and I having sex," Dom mutters, tearing his eyes from the screen and peering in some consternation at Billy, "that is quite clearly a photo of you having sex with Merry. Not me. You can tell from the curls."

"What?" Billy pulls the laptop back around to face him, and takes a closer look. "Ah, you're right. You've never had hair that long."

"I can't believe you thought that was me," Dom stands up, shakes his head and goes back to chopping onions. "Weren't the ears a giveaway?"

"Aren't you focusing on rather the wrong thing here?" 

Dom scrapes his chopped onions into the wok. Billy is rather short on appropriate cookware, and Dom has been led to believe in recent weeks that Billy survives on one wok, one saucepan, and a stockpot. Dom is unimpressed, and believes a trip to Debenhams is in order. "Shut up, Boyd, you're just trying to detract attention from the fact you hadn't noticed that you were having sex with Merry and not me." He crushes the garlic with the flat of his knife, and waves a wooden spoon ominously in Billy's direction. "What sort of mate are you, Bill?" Dom asks, his eyes wide, "You can't even tell the difference between the real-me and hobbit-me?" 

Billy is beginning to flounder. There is something very wrong about this conversation, and Billy can't quite put his finger on what. "Aren't you even slightly disturbed by the concept of exceptionally bad photo manipulation? It's hardly valid fan art, is it?" Billy narrowed his eyes, "You don't mind that some girl has photoshopped my head and your head onto gay porn models?"

" _Merry's_ head, Bills. And I don't know what 'photoshopped' means, so, no, I don't mind." Dom shakes his head, and opens Billy's cutlery drawer, rooting noisily around amongst the silverware, "Do you even own a potato peeler?" 

"Er, no. I don't think so. Use a knife. Or just wash 'em and chop 'em, that's what I do."

Dom mutters something under his breath that might have been 'philistine'. 

Billy pretends not to notice. "Dom, someone has taken a photo of Merry, cropped it so they've just got your head, and stuck it onto porn. Does this not strike you as odd?" Billy sighs, and nudges the laptop closer to Dom, pointing haphazardly at the screen. "I mean, it isn't even a good picture of Merry. You think the girl could find one where you weren't covered in mud. It looks ridiculous. Or perhaps she could have a found a porn star who had the same skin tone as you so it didn't look so bleeding obvious. And look at me and my porn star!"

Dom risks a second away from his concoction to take a closer look at the picture. "It's the Internet," Dom shrugs, "And some people just aren't artists. It's just a pity they have to inflict it on us, though. Some people just have too high an opinion of themselves." He nudges Billy, winking, "You, however... you don't look bad at all." he turns back to the stove. "You look better naked then he does, too."

Billy blinks. Twice. 

Dom stirs the pot.

**Seven: Billy and Dom watch the Rugby**

 

The scene: Dom is sat at one end of the sofa, clad in his England Rugby shirt and a pair of jeans. His bare feet are up on the coffee table, and bags of tortilla crisps and a clinking carrier bag of Black Sheep bottles surround him on all sides. Billy, however, is squished at the other end of the sofa, in a kilt and his Scotland shirt. He's surrounded by a multipack of wotsits, a packet of Bombay mix and twelve bottles of Old Jock. They aren't talking to each other, but are staring steadfastly at the screen as the pre-match commentary starts. 

"You're going to lose, you know." Dom says, matter-of-factually, ripping open his first packet of crisps. He's already half way down his second bottle of beer. 

"Shut up." Billy is staring resolutely into his wotsits.

"Well, it's true. You're going to lose. Especially after that embarrassing display of cackness against Wales last week."

"Fucking shut up, or you'll find your sorry arse on the doorstep. You won't get a good view from there, you know."

"Someone's touchy." Dom offers the tortilla crisps down the sofa, waggling his eyebrows in what he considers an amusing manner. "Just because you're facing imminent disaster on the rugby pitch, Boyd."

"Shut up. I am _not_ touchy. And we are not facing imminent disaster." Billy helps himself to Dom's crisps and points at the screen, completely ignoring Dom's amusing eyebrow waggle. "At least _we're_ not wearing bloody lycra."

"It aids the blood circulation." Dom retorts, taking back his crisps and reaching for the remote to turn the volume up. "At least _our_ national anthem isn't about a flower, you big girl's blouse."

"Who are you calling a girl, wanker?"

"Er, perhaps the guy in a skirt?"

"Look, this is Glasgow. On the day of the Six Nations England v Scotland game. And you're in an England shirt. Do you want me to chuck you out on the streets?" Billy raises his eyebrows, and indicates the front door. He's wearing his patented 'don't fuck with me' look, and Dom is fully aware that Billy will act on his threat given the slightest provocation.

"No." Dom is sullen, and he turns the volume up a bit louder still. "Oh look," he brightens, and points at the screen. "Scotland's having a mid life crisis."

"What the fuck are you going on about?" Billy is looking in some consternation at the screen as Dom laughs.

"Check out the streamers and the parade, Bill. You're just saying, 'I know we're shite at rugby, but we can throw a bloody good party, so boo sucks England.' You may as well have bought a red convertible and driven it around the pitch."

"Have you ever heard a Scotsman say 'boo sucks England'?" 

"I have now." Dom reaches for the remote again, and attempts to press the mute button. 

"What are you trying to do, you fuckwit?" Billy grabs the remote back from Dom and defiantly turned the volume up louder. "It's the anthems!" 

"I know," Dom grumbles, reaching for more crisps and despondently staring into his beer, "but I can't stand those bloody bagpipes..."

Billy shoots him a sidelong look. "Shut up, and let me enjoy the _Flower of Scotland_."

"Is that what you say to all the girls, Bills?"

Billy grinds his teeth, "I think... I might... have to kill you before this match is over, Dommie."

"Ah well, at least I'll die happy, with an England victory." 

"Don't count your chickens, Dominic," Billy growls, digging deep into the Bombay mix., "It ain't over till the fat lady sings, and don't you forget it."

"It isn't over till we beat your sorry arses into the ground, Bills," and Dom has the temerity to wink in Billy's direction, which causes Billy to narrow his eyes in a somewhat grumpy fashion. 

Billy has the distinct impression that he may well be guilty of murder by the end of the next eighty minutes. He rips the label off his beer bottle, and the paper tears with a satisfyingly loud noise. He flicks the label in Dom's general direction. 

"And lets just face it," Dom continues, completely ignoring Billy's missile, his eyes fixed firmly on the TV screen, "Our players are much more good looking than yours, anyway."

Billy chokes on his Old Jock. "Er... what?"

"Don't pretend you don't agree that rugby players are bloody sexy, Boyd," Dom cracks open another beer, and gestures wildly at the screen, the beer splashing haphazardly onto the sofa. Billy, if he was in his right mind at the time and not fully aware that he was stuck in a parallel universe where the conversation had somehow shifted to the sex appeal of rugby players without any discernable warning signs, knows that he should be pissed off by the alcohol related injury endured by his sofa. The seat, however, has seen much worse, and Billy can't seem to formulate a sentence in which to voice his non-existent displeasure. 

Billy blushes, and mutters something which may have been "erugh". 

Dom smirks, wrinkles his nose, and sticks his tongue out. He is looking decidedly pleased with himself, and Billy has a great desire to knock that self-satisfied grin off his face.

"Shut up, Dom." Billy manages, finally, his gaze firmly fixed on the TV screen. 

"Told you I was right." Dom grins, helping himself to more crisps. "Aren't I always right?"

"We're still going to bloody beat you, Monaghan."

"Don't be too sure of that."

And the match kicked off. 

 

**Eight: In Which Dom Makes Tea and Billy Fights For The Upper Hand**

The Scene: It's early Sunday evening and Billy is slumped on the sofa, feet up on the coffee table, ostensibly watching the end of _Short Circuit_ on the TV whilst periodically checking his emails on his ever-present laptop. Dom has been pottering around in the kitchen for what seems like hours, every so often sticking his head round the kitchen door to do Johnny 5 impressions. 

Eventually, as the titles begin to roll, Dominic edges his way into the living room with a tray piled high with food and a teapot balancing precariously on top of the _Radio Times._ "I made food," he says, proudly, waving the tray ominously in Billy's direction.

Billy is unimpressed. "You always make food, Dom. You say my cooking is inedible, so you'd rather make food than die a horrible death from e-coli."

"I only said that the once, after you tried to serve me that green shit."

"It was leek and potato soup."

"It was _not_ leek and potato soup. Leeks are not fluorescent. That was nuclear soup, with which you were clearly trying to kill me."

Billy narrows his eyes. His cooking is not _that_ bad, he has managed all these years and is still here to tell the tale. Dom is clearly a complete idiot and a food snob to boot. However, Billy is not the kind of Scotsman to turn down a free meal, and he decides the best way to move forward in this kind of situation is not to criticise either the chef, or the man holding the food. In this case, they are both Dom, so Billy decides to flutter his eyelashes in an ironic (yet strangely becoming) way, deposit the laptop on the sofa, and reach for a plate. 

"It's good stuff," Dom explains, sinking down onto his end of the sofa, "Poached chicken and cheese sandwiches. My speciality."

"Dom, everything appears to be your speciality. Bolognese? Your speciality. Buttered weetabix? Your speciality." Billy peers down at the plate. "Hang on, _poached_ chicken? How the bloody hell did you manage to poach something in that kitchen? Do I own something in which poaching can occur?"

Dom waggles his eyebrows and takes a bite. "I poached it in the microwave," he explains, "it's easy, Bills, even you could do it."

Billy stares in some consternation at his plate. "I doubt that."

"Go on, taste it, it's great."

Billy nibbles on a corner. He doesn't doubt that the food is good, because he has been around Dominic long enough to know that his cooking is excellent, but he enjoys that split second where Dom displays a hint of nervousness as he awaits Billy's conclusions. He raises his eyebrows. "Bloody hell, Dom, that's good."

"I know." Dom grins, "Of course it is; I made it. What else did you expect?"

"Bugger off. You have made some culinary disasters in your time, Dom."

"Like what?" Dom is attempting to look affronted whilst wiping away strings of cheese from his chin. The effect is not as menacing as he would have liked, and Billy hides a smile.

"That time you tried to make a steak and ale pie, for a start."

"That was pastry. Pastry is notoriously difficult for the first-timer." Dom says airily, reaching for the radio times and the TV remote, "and it bloody didn't help that that was the day you got that new kilt."

"What, now it's my fault the pie went wrong?" Now it is Billy's turn to attempt to look affronted, but this time, he's so confused by his kilt's entry into the conversation that he just manages to look startled. 

"Well," Dom shrugs, "You try concentrating on puff pastry when someone who looks as good as you in a kilt wanders into the kitchen with your 'ooh, look at me' face on."

"I do not have an 'ooh look at me' face." Billy splutters, dropping the remains of his sandwich all over his plate. 

"Yes you do; it's all 'ooh, I'm in the room, and I'm wearing a kilt, and look, everyone, look at me!" Dom waves his arms in the air and smoothes down an imaginary kilt, winking across the sofa at Billy. 

"Fuck off, I do not."

"Do too."

"Fecking don't."

Dom raises his eyebrows, grins, and takes another bite of his sandwich, mumbling, "Oh look, it's the _Antiques Roadshow._ Cool."

Billy slumps back into his seat as a geriatric displays her collection of pre-world war one tea cosies to the ecstatic joy of the tea-pot-coverings specialist. He feels sure that he's missed something very important in the last few moments, but he can't for the life of him figure out what. As always when he has been with Dom recently, Billy feels like he is three steps behind, running to catch up. 

"So then," Dom mumbles, a minute later, chewing the last of his sandwich, "These fics you're always on about. Are they all bad?"

"What?" Billy is confused, but as this appears to be his perpetual mental state at the moment, he tries not to pay too much attention to himself. 

"Fanfiction," Dom repeats, slowly in case Billy is too stupid to figure out what he is talking about. "Are. They. All. Bad?"

Billy narrows his eyes. Where was this leading? "No," he admits, finally, "If they were, would I bother reading them? I would have given up yonks ago."

Dom shrugs. "Find us a good 'un then, and I'll pour out t'tea."

" _You_ want to read fanfiction?" 

"Yes." Dom is speaking very slowly, for fear of confusing Billy further. Billy fights the desire to hit him across the face with the remains of his (very nice) sandwich. "But I don't want to read any of the shit you keep spewing out at me," Dom continues, "I want to read the good stuff." He rubs his hands together, and Billy is reminded of a dog straining against his leash to be set free.

"Are you sure?" Billy asks, reaching for his laptop. "Because fanfiction is a one-way street—its quicksand. You cannae escape once you accidentally fall in..." he is shooting Dom a sideways glance, watching Dom stir the tea with the tail end of a knife and pour it out into two giant mugs with the Scotland flag emblazoned on the side. 

Dom grins. "I think I'm up to the challenge." 

"Only if you're sure..." Billy raises an eyebrow, "Because reading fic—the really good stuff—is like opening Pringles. Once you pop you really can't stop."

Dom snorts. "Enough with your bloody awful analogies. Pass me the sodding laptop, you weirdo. I think I'll be alright, thank you very much. I have no fear."

Billy clears his throat. On any other day, the noise may have sounded something like 'cough-splinter-cough' but he looks so innocent when Dom's eyes meet his that Dom just raises his eyebrows and reaches for the laptop. 

Billy reaches for his mug of tea and tries to turn his attention back to the _Antiques Roadshow_. 

* 

Billy is half way through a classic episode of _Last of the Summer Wine_ , and his mug of tea is virtually empty and, anyway, cold, when Dom next speaks. The previous hour has been punctuated by nothing but the occasional tap of the keyboard, and the sound of Dom's fingers on the mousepad. 

"Get your arse over here." Dom mutters, finally, patting the space on the sofa next to him. 

Billy obliges, with mandatory grumpy noises as he shifts the foot and a half along the sofa so he's next to Dom. "What do you want?"

"Bills," Dom hesitates, and this is something a little odd from him, "Do I have nice eyes?" 

Billy can't help it. He snorts.

"No, Billy, seriously." Dom is turning slightly on the sofa, shifting so he's looking directly into Billy's eyes. "I've been reading some of these stories and they're obsessed with eyes... your eyes, Elijah's eyes, but never my eyes. Are my eyes not good enough or something?" He opens his eyes wide, and taps his middle finger (black nail varnish chipped down to the quick) on his forehead. "Go on, you can tell me, I can take it."

Billy blinks. "Have we been reading the same fics, Dom?" Billy shifts slightly, and pulls the laptop from Dom's lap. "There appears to be an international obsession with you and your sodding eyeliner. I don't get fics written about me where I've got kohl smudged wantonly across my cheekbone."

"Well I haven't seen any like that," Dom grumbles, petulantly sticking his lower lip out. "It's all 'From _the very first moment Dom laid eyes on Billy, he knew he was past all hope of loving another. He could stay forever lost in those vast, emotive, limpid-like pools that any other person would call eyes. Dom called them beautiful, like stars in the night sky_.' It's never about me, is it? It's all about how bloody good looking you are."

"I sincerely hope that wasn't a real quote, Dom." Billy shrugs, "And anyway, I'd be quite happy if my eyes weren't compared to 'vast, emotive, whatevers'. It's just too much hyperbole for my liking."

"It's alright to say that when there's a million fics shouting about how beautiful _your_ eyes are." Dom slumps back against the sofa cushions, grumbling, "I'm always sodding going unnoticed, me. Probably blend right into the crowd, I do. It's a wonder there are any fics about me at all, I'm surprised these writers can even remember my name when they're faced with the wonder of you and Orlando and Lij..."

Billy raises an eyebrow. "Shut the fuck up, you maungy sod, and listen to this, 'When _Dom entered the bar that evening, it was all Billy could do to keep breathing. Had the temperature gone up in the last few seconds? Billy could feel sweat beading on his forehead, and his heart beat had quickened. Dom—his Dom, his best friend Dom, was standing over him, his eyes ringed in black, sultry against the dimmed lights of the bar. Just breathe, Billy told himself, just breathe. But those eyes... how had Billy missed him all this time, how had Dom been part of his life day in, day out, how had Billy not noticed just how... truly beautiful he was?_ ' Will that do you, you idiot?"

Dom shrugs. "It was alright, I suppose. It was hardly Shakespeare."

"You're never sodding satisfied, are you? I get you an epiphany at a moments notice—entirely down to your eyes, might I add, - and all you want is 'shall _I compare thee to a summers_ day'?"

"Well, no, I'd go for something a little less clichéd." Dom grins, "And anyway, that wasn't really revelling in the glory of my beautiful eyes, was it? It was just you getting hot under the collar for your best mate."

Billy's eyes widen, and a grin steals across his face. "You think _that_ was me getting hot under the collar for you?"

"Wasn't it?" 

"I'll find you hot under the collar, Dominic."

Dom shifts on the sofa, stretching slightly as he changes position for the first time in an hour. "Ok, Bill, you find me something better, and I'll go and make us some more tea."

Billy grins. Dom had no idea what he was letting himself in for. 

When Dom arrives back balancing two mugs and a packet of custard creams, Billy is sniggering to himself and appearing to concentrate very hard on _Coronation Street_ , which is just starting. Dom raises an eyebrow and passes over a mug (not the Scotland one this time, but one that matches the teapot, with lolloping rabbits bouncing around the lip) before settling himself down on the edge of the sofa and reaching for the laptop. 

Billy decides now is not the time or the place to interrogate Dom about why he didn't use the mugs that were already dirty—for whilst Dominic may be an excellent cook, his ability to use every single item in Billy's kitchen before the feeling the need to fill the dishwasher is uncanny—as Billy considers that watching Dom's reaction to an NC-17 fic will far excel the minute satisfaction Billy would glean from interrogating him. 

To be sure, it takes just five minutes for Dom to erupt with a loud, gutteral, "Gah!" 

"Something wrong, Dominic?" Billy asks, innocently, appearing to tear his attention away from Fred Elliot. 

"Um. No." Dom reaches for a cushion, and hugs it to him, peering over the top corner with a look of such consternation that Billy can't help but laugh. "Everything's fine."

"Well, that's alright then." Billy, smirking, turns back to the TV.

Dom opens his mouth. Then closes it again. Opens it, and stares across at Billy. "Have you read this?" He asks, his eyes wide. 

Billy shrugs. "Once or twice."

"And this is... um, normal?" Dom is (to Billy's immense satisfaction) actually blushing. 

"Is what normal?"

"Um. The... When we use the, um... well." Dom wrinkles his nose helplessly. "The Mayonnaise, Billy. We're—they're using mayonnaise."

"I take it we're not using it to make ham sandwiches, Dom."

"No. Surely that isn't... um, hygienic."

"Probably not." Billy raises an eyebrow. This is better than he could have imagined. 

"The author, um, seems very um, knowledgeable. She seems to know where things, uh, go."

"I've never seen you speechless before, Dom."

"I've never read about you and me having sex before!" Dom shakes his head. "It's a whole new experience... I'm bound to be a bit shell-shocked." 

"Ah, well, there's a first time for everything." Billy grins, and pokes Dom in the arm. "So how was our first time, then Dommie?" He flutters his eyelashes, and is rewarded by Dom hitting him square in the face with the cushion. 

"Bugger off, Bills. I haven't finished it yet. Our first time is still, um, unfinished. Come back in two minutes."

"Two minutes?" Billy raised an eyebrow. "Ok, Dom, whatever you say. However long you _think_ you'll need." Billy shot a sidelong glance down the sofa, where he caught Dom sticking his tongue out at him, grinning. Billy ostensibly switches his attention back to the TV.

"I never imagined you were so, uh, pliable before, Bills." Dom sighs, two minutes later, finally depositing the laptop on the coffee table, the story finished. "You were very bendy."

Billy's eyes widen. "Bendy?"

"Very, very bendy." Dom wrinkles his nose, "I hadn't expected that of you."

"Really?" Billy opens the custard creams and offers them across to Dom. "I've always seen myself as being quite dexterous."

Dom narrows his eyes. "Oh really?" he grins, and after staring at Billy for a second, he winks. "I guess I'm going to have to rethink my ideas of you naked, Billy."

There was a long pause as Dom waited for Billy to run three steps and catch up. 

"You, uh, really think about me naked?"

Dom smiles, grins, laughs and reaches for the _Radio Times._

Billy blinks. He had a hold of the upper hand for about five minutes, he calculates; before bloody Dom just wanders along and snatches it back again. Now he's back where he always is, a perpetual state of sodding confusion.

**Nine: In which Dom has time to spare and a game is prepared**  
The scene: It is early evening and Dom is crouched on the living room floor in between the remains of (Billy's brand new and reasonably expensive) printer paper, a pile of different coloured felt tips and a roll of stickers. Billy (who has been out for the day in Edinburgh) has just arrived home and is standing in the doorway, staring in some consternation at Dom and the incredible mess. It has been raining for the best part of the day—since about ten minutes after Billy left the house that morning actually, hat-less and umbrella-less, as was his wont—and the carpet surrounding him is beginning to resemble a muddy puddle as rain drips off his hair and runs down his forehead. Billy is hungry, and his stomach is rumbling. He had decided to forego a cheese and onion baguette from the faux-Parisian delicatessen in the train station in the (vain) belief that Dom would have laid on some sort of spread in honour of his return from the capital, but he is quickly coming to the realisation that he should have bought a packet of hula hoops from the Off-Licence on his way home. He can see his laptop, hidden beneath a sea of empty packets of salt and vinegar crisps and half empty mugs of tea on the coffee table, and can also make out the cable to his printer, which is currently churning out reams of paper round the side of the sofa. 

"You need a new printer cartridge." Dom doesn't look up from where he's haphazardly attaching stickers to the top of stapled piles of A4. "And you're running low on staples."

"What the bloody hell is going on here, Dominic?" Billy is still staring in some consternation at the levels of desecration his living room has submitted to in his absence. "How did you manage to make such a mess?"

"This isn't mess, Billy, it's organised chaos. Preparation."

Billy blinks. And takes a deep breath. He knows he shouldn't ask, but he can't help but open his mouth. The words just want to come out, and Billy can't stop them. "Preparation for what?"

Dom looks up and across at him, grinning. It's at about this time Billy realises that Dom is still wearing his tracksuit bottoms and his old (2000/2001 season) Manchester United shirt, which tend to be the same clothes that Dom usually stumbles out of his bedroom in every morning (lunchtime). It's seven p.m. "I've been making us a game," Dom tells him, excitedly. "It's going to be great."

_Um._ Billy decides to concentrate on the easy stuff. "Is this even mine?" he asks, leaning over and picking up the red stapler, "Do I _own_ staples?"

"I found it in that box under your bed." Dom explains, drawing an oak tree with a flourish in blue felt tip across the top of the sheet of paper. "You've got some right shite under there."

"I know," Billy shrugs, "It's where I stick all the stuff I can't be bothered to sort out." He contemplates attempting to peel himself out of his suit jacket, but decides the discomfort will be less if he just stands there and slowly catches pneumonia. "Note that I'm not concentrating on the dubious realisation you've been rooting about under my bed. Note that I'm not asking any questions about what you were doing in my bedroom."

Dom grins, "Noted." 

Billy shakes his head and sinks down onto the sofa. "Make us a cup of tea, Dommie," Billy pleads, fully aware he'll be leaving a very wet bum-shaped patch if he can ever bring himself to stand up. "And then you can explain to me what the bloody hell you're playing at, making us a game..."

"Slight problem there, Bills," Dom looks up with a sheepish smile on his face, "we haven't got any milk."

Ok. Billy takes this like a man. His fingers grip the edge of the sofa, and he begins to mutter under his breath; Dom catching the odd bit now and again: _'Let you stay in my house... out all hours... raining... long day... man wants tea... man needs chocolate biscuits... no fucking milk...'_

"There might be enough for one," Dom concedes, and makes a hurried dash to the kitchen. 

Billy thinks that depriving a man of his tea after a hard day is similar to chopping his arms off and presenting him with a knife and fork. From the kitchen, Billy hears the kettle being filled and the fridge being opened. He wonders just where the milk is going to come from, because it isn't as if there is a small black and white Friesian tied up outside the back door, just an overflowing wheelie bin and a deflated football. And it's sodding Dom's fault that the football's got a sodding puncture; all that 'look at me, I can do like, a million keepy-uppies' when there was still the charcoaled remnants of their barbecue radiating merrily two foot to his left. Balls were supposed to pop if you attempted to kebab them on a grill. Dom had just grinned and offered to sauté some vegetables and make a meal of it, maintaining that melted, popped footballs retained some essential nutrients. Billy had pushed him into the flowerbed, showered him with soil and pointed out that soil had nutrients too.

Billy's fingers curled in his lap. He required a cup of tea, and he required it _now_. And then, after he received it, he would consider the disaster area that had once been his living room and subject Dom to a number of pointed questions about the nature of his employment over the previous twelve hours. In the meantime, however, he decides to just switch the telly on and while away five minutes in front of _Emmerdale_. He never could understand why anyone would make the move from Home and Away to the Yorkshire Dales, swapping bikinis on the beach for pulling pints in a two-bit village ostensibly quite near Leeds, and every time he caught a bit of _Emmerdale_ he couldn't help but ponder the issue of Marilyn versus Louise. He wants to know what happened in _Neighbours_ earlier, but to ask Dom would be to admit that he was forgiven for not providing enough milk and a nice meal for his return. So Billy stays silent and tries to remember the teletext page that the soaps are summarised on. 

"1-1-8" Dom calls from the kitchen. 

"What?" Billy puts down the remote. He was quite sure (well, fairly adamant actually) that he hadn't actually said anything out loud.

"You want to know what happened in _Neighbours_ ," Dom sticks his head around the door and waggles his eyebrows. "You always do."

Billy concedes the point, shrugs, and reaches for the remote again. 

"But, I suppose, if I was a particularly good house-guest," Dom grins, "I might have taped it for you."

Billy doesn't like to have his hopes raised. This could be some huge joke, and Billy wouldn't like to be disappointed, so he just nods, and looks at Dom, "And are you?" he asks.

"Am I what?"

"A good house-guest."

"The best." Dom replies patiently, "The kind who tapes _Neighbours_ for you, goes out and buys chocolate hobnobs and hula hoops, orders in Chinese and has enough milk for a multitude of cups of tea. And the kind who buys enough beer to sustain a small army." 

"Are you kidding me?" 

"Only about the small army." Dom shrugs, and presents Billy with a cup of tea and a large plate of milk chocolate hobnobs. 

"I think I might love you," Billy mumbles, cradling his cup of tea. 

"Sodding eventually." 

Dom heads back into the kitchen for his own cup of tea, and Billy is left wondering just what Dom meant by that. Dom has become more and more cryptic over the last few weeks, and Billy just can't decide whether the whole thing is some big joke or if there is something Dom is trying to tell him. He decides he'll think about it later, after he's changed out of his wet clothes, dunked a few biscuits and watched _Neighbours_. 

Over the closing credits of the video, Billy is tempted to ask how the scriptwriters are planning on writing Joe out of the current storylines now he's been sacked, but he's aware that asking Dom _that_ is tantamount to asking him how he would best prefer his favourite pet bunny to die horribly, so he instead concentrates on the mountain of special fried rice and prawn toast and numerous other nameless foil trays that litter the coffee table and decides to ask the most dangerous question of all. "Dom... about this game..."

"Lord of the Rings Real Person Slash Top Trumps" Dom says brightly. 

Billy chokes on his noodles. "Top trumps?" He asks, telling himself he misheard. 

"Top trumps," Dominic agrees. "I've spent all day making them."

"Uh-huh."

"There are ratings for bad characterisation, use of ridiculous euphemisms, most unrealistic sex, feminisation, comedy lines, manliness, fluffiness and then an overall rating for the fic. And then a bonus section for misuse of slang."

"Feminisation?" Under no circumstances is Billy willing to question _why_ Dom has spent so long creating this game, nor the fact that he is quite clearly insane and mad and probably worthy of being tied up and locked in a nice room with very soft walls. Instead, Billy concentrates on the fact that he has dropped his prawn toast in his sweet and sour sauce, and is grimly trying to scoop it out with the obligatory pair of free chopsticks. 

"If they make us cry over _Sleepless in Seattle_ ," Dom explains patiently, "rather than the _Dirty Dozen_. Or if they insist that we curl up together and get into all that touchy-feely bollocks after a shag."

Billy deposits the (now bright red and sopping) toast on the side of his plate. "I happen to quite like the touchy-feely bollocks, Dom." 

"That's because you're quite a tactile person. _This_ I can imagine about you. I don't really see you as the sort of person who would demand that we get a puppy whilst referring to me as Dommie-Wommie-Kins. And of course, we would have had perfect first-time sex after discovering the power of the penis twenty minutes earlier."

"Have you spent all day reading fanfiction, Dominic?" Now it is Billy's turn to be patient, "All day?"

"I nipped out for some milk and a packet of hobnobs."

"Did you get changed?" Billy eyes up Dom's shirt and tracky bottoms. 

"What's wrong with my clothes?" Dom looks down at his Man Utd shirt, and pulls a face. 

"Nothing," Billy reasons, "Apart from the fact that you generally sleep in them."

"The man in the shop wasn't to know that, was he?" 

Billy sighs, helps himself to more chow mein, and promises himself that this will all make perfect sense in the very near future. 

Dom, however, in between dunking prawn crackers into sweet and sour sauce so he can revel in that fizzing noise (signifying some dangerous chemical reaction that Billy doesn't really want to focus on), is dividing a large pile of stapled A4 sheets into two. "This is your half," he tells Billy, handing him a ream of printer paper, "and this is mine."

Billy blinks, slowly, and wonders if he got up and ran now, would Dom be particularly pissed off. "Uh, thanks."

"Right. Read the name of the fic out on your top piece of paper, then pick a category and read that, then we'll see if you beat me or not."

"You're insane, do you know that?"

"Completely. Staying with you rubs off on me, y'know?" Dom winks, grinning. 

Billy nudges Dom with his toe. "Oi. Shut it. Else I may be forced to retract my invitation."

"Ah, you'll never do that. You love having me around too much."

Billy raises an eyebrow. "Don't count on that, Dominic."

Dom flutters his eyelashes, "You love me really. But probably not as much as I would love you if you could just get on and play your first fic."

Billy clears his throat. "Ok, idiot, here goes. _Toxic_ by _Do Billy and Dom Still Think They're in the Closet_ aka _Billy_Luvs_Dom_. Is this for real?"

Dom shrugs. "Sadly, yes. Pick a category."

"Ok, ok. Um... Misuse of slang. 9/10 for _'Billy looked over to where his lover was sprawled wantonly across the double bed, beckoning with a black painted nail. "You're completely nutters" Billy yells, before launching himself at his boyfriend."'_

"Damn." Dom scans down his fic. "Mine was _Nowhere to Run_ by _Hobbits_Rock_ —no comedy username for me I'm afraid—and there wasn't much misuse of slang. 1/10. You win."

Billy reaches across for Dom's fic, and adds it to the bottom of his pile. "'Nutters' really pisses me off," Billy reaches for another prawn cracker, "How do you reckon it started? I mean, it's quite clearly singular. _You are a nutter. Your behaviour is nuts. You two are behaving like a right pair of nutters._ So where did all this 'you're nutters' when referring to one person bollocks come from?"

Dom shrugs. "Probably a misinterpretation of the second person. The only way I could figure it out was if Orlando was to have referred to us and said 'you're nutters' but using the collective 'you', meaning both of us, rather than the singular, meaning just one of us."

"Would it have to be Orlando?" Billy asks, raising an eyebrow. "Or could it have been any of us? And have you been thinking about this a lot?"

"Well, quite clearly I had to grade misuse of slang on a scale, so I had to pick the worst examples out first and then work out the grading system on a ten-point scale. And lets just face it; it probably was Orlando who started the whole thing off. He causes trouble wherever he is, that boy."

"Dom, you're fucking insane."

"This is what happens when you leave me alone for a day. When you're not around I have to amuse myself." Dom grins and reaches for a handful of chow mein, "Go on, Bills. It's your turn again."

Billy shakes his head. Plumbing the depths of Dom's psyche will have to wait for another day. "Ok. This one is _The Power of Love_ by _Doms_Trousers_. What a fucking stupid name... ok, I pick characterisation. This one's great, actually, 9/10 for: _When Billy got home, tired and exhausted, he opened his door to find the hallway full of flowers. Tulips, his favourite. They always reminded him of home. "Dom," he calls, dropping his keys on the hall table, "Are you here?"_  
 _"In here, William." And Billy stepped into the dining room to find a table laid for two, with candles flickering all round the table and on the window sills. Dom was pouring white wine into goblets._  
 _"Is this all for me?" Billy gasps, and tears form in his big green eyes._  
 _"I wanted you to know just how much I love you, William Boyd."_ Billy shook his head. "What a pile of wank. As if I would cry if I found you'd cooked me dinner and bought me flowers."

"It's rubbish, cos I'd never tell you I loved you like that," Dom tells him, propping himself up at one end of the sofa and cracking open a beer.

"So how would you tell me you loved me then, Dom?" Billy grins, nudging Dom's knee with his own.

"I'd tell you all the time. I don't need to say _'I love you, William Boyd'_ to tell you that I love you. You just have to listen a bit harder, Bills." Dom shuffles his papers on his lap, "And you win again, my bad characterisation score is only 3/10. If you'd said ridiculous euphemisms, nothing could have topped my _velvet-sheathed sword of passion and desire_. 10/10, that one was. Fuck, and now I've lost it to you."

Billy swallows. His palm sweats, and he rubs it along his thigh. One of them is being incredibly obtuse here, and Billy is fucked if he can figure out which one of them it is. 

"Your turn, Billy."

Billy shakes his head. He's sick of playing games. But he doesn't know how to stop.

**Ten: Where Dom demonstrates his capabilities and Billy realises there is more to friendship than laughing at the TV**

It's 10 p.m. on a Saturday night in a vodka bar. It's pissing it down outside, and the area just in front of the main entrance is full of girls shaking the rain off their boyfriends' coats, the boys looking decidedly the worse for wear after running (walking, slowly, so as to keep up with the tottering of heels across wet cobbles) all the way across town in just their shirts. Dominic is staring in some consternation at the queue for the bar, muttering "It's five deep... we'll be here till fucking last orders at this rate, and all I want is a sodding pint," whilst Billy is trying his best not to laugh at the look of sheer distaste plastered across Dom's face.

"I thought I was supposed to be the old bugger in this room," Billy grins, pulling off his coat. The jacket is his pride and joy—a brown corduroy one with campari buttons that used to belong to his dad in the sixties—and Billy only wears it on very special occasions. Special occasions and when Dom demands that Billy put it on right this instant because he's not hitting the town with an aging film star dressed like Peter Stringfellow, all the time with one hand on the door handle and the other shooing Billy upstairs in the general direction of his wardrobe. Billy had narrowed his eyes and mumbled that firstly, he wasn't aging thankyouverymuch, and secondly, he didn't look a thing like Peter Stringfellow. Then it had all got a bit serious, and Billy had refused to leave the house until Dom had taken it back and promised Billy that he didn't (in the slightest) remind Dom of Mr Stringfellow, and Dom had laughed, his eyes dark, and admitted he just liked Billy in the jacket—and would he get a bloody move on, because by the time they made it into town, the bars would be fucking shutting, and they'd just have to come home and spend another evening in front of the laptop. To which Billy had stared at Dom with a mixture of confusion and the beginnings of recognition, and Dom had pulled a face and stuck his tongue out, pulling open the front door so they could venture out into the pouring rain. 

So now they are in the vodka bar, Dom complaining that all he really wants is a pint of 80, and does this pissing, pretentious bar even serve bitter, and Billy laughing and holding his jacket over one arm and points out that Dom likes vodka just as much as the next man, and he's only moaning because they've come to Revolution instead of Creation. 

But then, Dom's reaching for his arm, and mouthing at something behind Billy's head, but it's too late and something—someone—slams into Billy's shoulder and then he can feel something warm running down his neck.

The smell hits him before the realisation. 

Some arsewipe has vomited on him. 

On his shirt. On his arm. And on his jacket. _His jacket_.

And in that true 'I don't believe that just happened' style, Billy continues to stare at his sleeve, whilst Dom grabs hold of his other arm and pulls him out of the line of fire for the second coming. 

This is why, come 11 o'clock, Dom and Billy aren't queuing to get into their club of choice, they're standing next to the bus stop in the pissing rain, drops running in rivulets down their foreheads, the remains of Dom's eyeliner somewhere along his cheekbone. 

"Can't we get a taxi, Dom?" Billy moans, holding his jacket at arms length, taking in the (even wetter) patches where he's soaked paper towels in water and soap in the bar toilets and scrubbed at the remains of someone else's vomit. He squirms uncomfortably in his shirt, trying to ignore the fact that not only has it covered his favourite jacket, it went all down his favourite shirt as well; the soft green one that Billy wore whenever he could get away with it. 

"Do you honestly think a taxi would take us anywhere with you smelling like that?" Dom grins, and flicks Billy on the shoulder, "And anyway, that would mean you didn't get to stand next to me in the pouring rain, bemoaning the sad state of our lives. And where would be the fun in that?"

"Surely he can't refuse to take us home if we promise not to get vomit all over his seats." Billy moans, narrowing his eyes in the general direction of the bus timetable. "I could take my shirt off, that might work."

"I think most taxi drivers prefer their punters to be clothed," Dom winks, and Billy grins at the sight of Dom with black streaks running down his face, "even if I always say the less clothes the better, where you're concerned. Anyway, it's better for the environment for us to save fuel and get the bus. And it's cheaper."

"Did you... um, well, just say..." Billy is sure he just heard Dom proclaim a desire to see him topless, and he'll be buggered if he's just going to let this one pass him by, even if he is covered in wet patches from scrubbing off someone else's vomit and smelling like a tramp's armpit. Now all he has to do is get the words out.

But Dom, as per usual, is too fast for him. "Bus is here. I'll pay for us both."

And Billy is left, as per usual, on the pavement, in the rain, open-mouthed, as Dom pays for their tickets and then stands in the doorway, saying that if Billy doesn't get his arse on the bus right this second then they won't be sodding going anywhere, and he doesn't want to piss off the nice bus driver, does he?

No, Billy tells himself; he doesn't want to do that. 

So he does what he always does; he shuts his mouth. Then he clambers on to the bus, hopes that the bus driver has a terrible sense of smell, pushes past Dom to get the window seat, and wonders when his life descended to the point that rather than being the type of guy that gets an invitation to sit in the _stalls_ at the Oscars, he's now the type of guy who stinks of vomit on the last bus home on a Saturday night in Glasgow, all the time wondering why his best mate appears to be flirting with him. 

"You've gone quiet," Dom says, a couple of minutes later. 

Billy is tracing his name in the condensation on the bus window, wondering why he feels so damn embarrassed and trying to ignore the fact that Dom is sitting next to him, leaning up against the vomit-covered shirt like he isn't noticing the terrible smell. It wasn't his fault that some pissed-up shit-fer-brains arsehole chose the specific moment he was walking past to empty the contents of his stomach all over him and the bar. It could have happened to anyone. It could have happened to Dom if the shit had timed his up-chuck reflex for four seconds earlier. But it didn't, did it; it was Billy, as per usual. Just like it's always Billy doing the stupid things, looking like the idiot; Billy with the soaking wet shirt because he had to run it under the tap in the toilets and Billy with his jacket on his knees rather than round his shoulders. And of course it was Billy who was trying not to think about the state of his wallet (which, obviously, he'd left open to the elements (vomit) in his shirt pocket), and Billy who was left wondering if you could wash credit cards and have them still work afterwards. 

"Billy?"

"Sorry, Dom." Billy turns to face him, trying to edge his (stinking) shirt as far away from Dom's jacket as the cramped space allows. 

Dom looks concerned. "Are you trying to get as far away from me as possible, or what?"

"What...?" Billy sighs. "I just didn't want you to end up covered in sick as well. Fuck, what a night. Bet you're glad you came out with me now, huh?" He forces a smile and goes back to tracing his name in the glass. 

Dom grins. "Is _that_ all you're worried about? Vomit? When you're sat next to the Alice Cooper reject?" He jabs a finger in the general direction of his cheek. "Don't think I don't know what I look like, you know, probably got fucking eyeliner everywhere. If you feel the need to take yourself off and sit somewhere else, feel free. I won't be hurt." He pouts, "I can take it like a man. Rejection doesn't hurt me."

Billy laughs, "Rejection doesn't hurt you? This from the man who demands positive affirmation for every cup of tea he makes?"

"I do not."

"'Oh, Bills, I tried a new way of making tea today. I warmed the milk first. What do you think, tell me the truth now,'" Billy raises his eyebrows, "That's a request for me to stroke your ego if ever I saw one."

Dom waggles his eyebrows, "No, _this_ is a demand for you to stroke my ego, Billy." He winks, slowly, his gaze sliding down from Billy's face to his chest, and then to his groin. Despite the ridiculous picture the two of them must make, soaking wet, stinking, and him with his eyeliner half way down his face, Billy feels himself blushing. 

Now that was a first. 

Billy, in a vain attempt to cover the fact that he appears to have turned into some sort of simpering schoolgirl (despite the overwhelming smell of vomit which quite clearly says otherwise) goes back to writing his name on the window.

"Did you ever do this when you were a kid, Bills?" Dominic asks, slowly leaning over Billy to write his name above Billy's on the steamed up window, "Write your names on the window on your way home from school. You and your girlfriend."

Billy takes a deep breath. A very deep breath. Because if he tries to speak now, there is a distinct possibility that he might say something he regrets. And, even worse than the voicing of latent desires which may be regretted at some later moment, there is the possibility that his voice may shake whilst voicing those particular needs. And far be it for Billy to address the realisation that there appeared to be some kind of (drunken) attempted flirting going on between the two of them; he was far more worried that he'd come off looking like some fluffy romantic. He was a man, he told himself sharply, and men didn't have wavering voices and shaking hands as they watched their best mates write their names on a grimy window. They just didn't.

Billy shifts slightly in his seat so he can sit on his hands. It's the best way, he tells himself, trying not to pay too much attention to the fact that window now says 'Dom and Billy' both facing inwards and outwards. "Aye, well I was always on the back seat making fun of the kids scrawling their names."

Dom shrugs, and settles back into his seat, "Bet you never knew I could write backwards, did you?" Dom grins, indicating the window.

"That's not backwards, Dom, that's mirror writing. It's an entirely different thing. If it were backwards, it'd say Mod and Y-Llib."

"Yours sounds Welsh," Dom comments, peering out of the front of the bus to find out where they were. He didn't particularly want to miss their stop and have to trek an extra mile in the pouring rain. "Probably requires a funny pronunciation. Try it with a lisp."

"ee-Thlib. Is that better?"

"I'd say so."

"I hope there aren't any Welsh people on this bus, they'd probably be horribly insulted." Billy mutters, shaking his head. 

"It's a good thing we smell too bad for anyone to contemplate coming close then," Dom raises an eyebrow. "Come on, its our stop."

Billy doesn't know what the fuck is going on, but he knows that something has changed and he can't quite figure out what. He's walking home from the bus stop beside Dom, in the pissing rain, (the water running down his face in rivulets and catching on his eyelashes so that when he blinks, the raindrops blur his vision for a moment). There isn't anything odd about this. There _isn't_ anything odd in this. He and Dom have been out drinking many a time, and have crawled home in the early hours more times than he can remember, laughing and holding on to each other. 

Except that this evening they're not drunk enough to justify holding onto each other. Both of them are perfectly capable of walking by themselves. They're probably capable of attempting (and possibly completing, as long as it isn't one of those fucking cryptic buggers) a crossword; such is their intellectual capacity at this time on a Saturday night.

Which doesn't explain why Dom's arm is currently snaking its way across Billy's (soaking, smelly) shoulders. 

Nor does it explain why Billy isn't pulling away, and is, instead, debating the possibility of slipping his own arm around Dom's waist. 

And most of all, it doesn't explain why they don't pull away from each other as they cross the road and head wordlessly into the Co-op for late night snacks and beer, only disentangling themselves when they can't both get through the door. 

They stand, shoulder to shoulder, in front of the packets of biscuits, Billy holding the basket. Dom picks up chocolate hobnobs and a packet of custard creams, and deposits them in the bottom of the basket next to the multipack of Hula Hoops (Dom's choice) and the jar of crunchy peanut butter (Billy's) and six bottles of Theakston's _Old Peculiar_ because they're selling it off cheap. Neither of them are talking, which is strange, because normally shopping for food turns into a battle of wills as to who gets to choose what type of pick n' mix they get to take home and whether Dom will allow Billy to buy pot noodles or not. 

Dom doesn't say anything when Billy attempts to drop a sweet and sour pot rice in amongst the hobnobs, just picks it up and pops it back on the shelf, telling him quietly, _you've got me to cook for you now._ And Billy doesn't even try to argue the toss; he just moves onto the next shelf and picks up a packet of basmati as a peace offering. And Billy doesn't argue when Dom picks up strawberry jelly and a jelly mould shaped like a spaceman, nor when he's dragged down the fizzy drinks aisle in search of Coke. Billy just shakes his head and puts it back on the shelf, taking a bottle of Irn Bru instead, murmuring _you're in Scotland now._

Billy feels Dom's hand on his arm from the moment they join the queue; cupping his elbow with a wet hand and taking the basket off him and not taking no for an answer. 

And Billy catches Dom's eye, and laughs, because Dom really does look like a reject from a New Romantics band, let alone Alice Cooper. "You look a right state, mate."

Dom grins (but he still doesn't remove his hand from Billy's elbow), "At least I don't stink like a gorilla's arse."

"Aye, you've got me there."

Dom smiles, and refuses to let Billy pay. 

Back out on the road, and Billy doesn't know what to say or do. Before, it seemed perfectly natural for Dom to sling his arm around Billy's shoulder and drag him a couple of steps closer. When it could still be construed as something that _friends_ would do. Now, when Dom's left with the carrier bag and Billy doesn't know what to do with his hands, he stuffs them in his pockets and hunches his shoulders up against the rain. 

"Come on, Dom," Billy mutters against the wind, "It's pissing it down. Let's get a move on."

Dom stops in the middle of the pavement, five steps behind Billy, and laughs. "Bills, we're soaked to the fucking skin. Some dickwad vomited on you, for Christ's sake, what the fuck difference is five minutes going to make to us now? We're hardly going to get home clean and dry, are we?"

Billy points, "But the shopping..."

"Fuck the shopping." Dom is staring at him, and the effect from the remains of the eyeliner and the orange glare of the streetlights is weird enough to make Billy smile slowly. "Sod it all. I'm sick of all this messing about. Get your arse over here, Boyd."

"What the fuck?"

"Over here, or I'll come over and get you myself."

Billy's hands are still in his pockets, and he can feel them sweating. His foot taps the pavement, and rain runs down the back of his neck. He doesn't move. 

"This is a once in a lifetime offer, Billy." Dom says quietly. He leans the shopping bag up against his leg, the Irn Bru falling and hitting him on the toe. His face screws up in momentary pain. "The pick n' mix is getting wet."

Billy bites his lip, "If this was in one of those badfics we keep reading..."

"If this was in a truly bad fic, somebody would have been raped and my eyeliner would be intact and nobody would have vomited on you. Especially not somebody who doesn't play a vital part in the storyline. You wouldn't stink and I wouldn't have just dropped a bottle of bru on my foot. And we certainly wouldn't have got the bus home."

"This is quite like the end of _Four Weddings and a Funeral_ , though, isn't it?" Billy smiles, "I thought we were way too cool for _'Is it raining? I hadn't noticed'_."

"I'm going to gloss over the fact you appear to be able to quote Hugh Grant films. And," Dom shakes his head, and the raindrops fly sideways like a wet dog after falling in a pond, "I'm perfectly well aware that it is raining, actually. And believe it or not, I have no intention of standing here all night waiting for you to make your mind up once and for all. So get a sodding move on."

Billy sighs. "I thought you were going to come over here and get me."

"That window of opportunity has passed." Dom grins. "You have to come over here and get me now."

"I do, do I?" Billy smiles. "And what's to say that I want to take you home with me?"

Dom shrugs, "Fair enough. I'll just bugger off with the pick n' mix, and the hula hoops, and the _chocolate hobnobs_ and get myself a taxi elsewhere..."

"Um, who's to say you get custody of the chocolate hobnobs?" Billy has taken a step forward, the rain pelting off his shoulders and bouncing off his shoes. He wipes a hand across his forehead to rid himself of the drops that keep threatening his eyelashes, but the movement is fatuous and unnecessary, for the wind has changed and the rain is coming straight at him, making him blink against the ferocity of the weather. "And I thought you didn't approve of taxis. Bad for the environment, you said earlier. Waste of fuel, you said. Get the bus, you said."

Dom's fingers curl around the carrier bag, "We've just got off the last bus, idiot. Unless you want me to wait around until morning, I'll have to trek back into town—with my biscuits—and get a taxi." He raises an eyebrow, and waggles it. Billy grins, and takes a step closer, opening his mouth to speak. Dom gets in first, however, grinning and saying, "Possession is nine tenths of the law, Boyd, and I happen to be carrying the shopping, so I get the hobnobs. And establishing joint custody of biscuits in weather such as this can only be detrimental to them as they'll just get all soggy, so, in conclusion, the legal rights of this case are surely on my side."

Billy moves another step nearer to Dom. Raindrops are sliding down his nose and dripping off the end. "I have a legal right to appeal, I think," Billy mumbles against the rain, his eyes meeting Dom's, "as I don't think the hobnobs got a chance to put across their side of the story."

Dom blinks. "Didn't they?" 

Billy is close enough to touch him. He shakes his head. "Nope." His eyes don't leave Dom's, but he leans down and his fingers curl around the carrier bag, around Dom's (wet and cold and clammy) fingers.

"Are you trying to steal my biscuits, Billy?" Dom asks, moving closer so that despite the rain, Billy can feel his breath on his face.

"No," Billy mutters, and he licks his lips, "I'm just trying to take _our_ biscuits home." His fingers itch to curl around Dom's, but **real** men don't hold hands, they do friendly punches and play football. They piss about in the street at night, slinging arms around each other and scrawling their names on bus windows. Billy knows this. He knows this. He's well aware that Dom is just his mate, his best mate. Any flirting that Billy thinks may have been going on is just the result of an overactive imagination (and probably a close proximity to cleaning products and stale vomit for the majority of the evening). However, in the heat (freezing, pissing cold) of the moment, when he's stood (under a street lamp by the co-op in the pissing rain, soaking wet and smelling like a mixture of vomit and cheap liquid soap from Revolution's toilets) so close to Dom that Dom's free hand is resting on his shoulder, the fingers curling in and out of Billy's hair, Billy is hard pressed to come up with any other explanation that fits.

"Oh, well that's alright then." Dom smiles, so close that Billy can see the individual raindrops, "I'd hate for our biscuits to feel they weren't loved by both of us."

There's quiet for a moment (apart from the rain, and the odd car), and Billy fights the temptation to run his thumb across Dom's cheek and get rid of the black streams. Billy is aware that if this were a bad fic, the sight of Dom's cascading eyeliner would be enough to send Billy into a tumultuous sexual fever where he lost sight of public decency laws and attempted to rip Dom's clothes off in the middle of the street. Billy doesn't have the gall or the gumption to attempt such feats of sexual daring, so he pauses, wondering what to say to ease the tension. "Bit of a shit evening, really," he says, finally, not meeting Dom's eyes. 

"Do you think?" Dom says, and he smiles, his fingers trailing the short distance from Billy's hair to his cheek. His eyes flick to Billy's for a second, his fingers tighten; and before Billy can begin to question him, Dom's kissing Billy.

If Billy were in his right mind at this point, (and not murmuring something that sounds a bit like 'muummph' against Dom's mouth), he would be aware that this is not one of the world's best kisses. There is no raising crescendo from the invisible backing orchestra, time doesn't slow down or stand still, and Dom—well, Dom's lips are cold and wet against his, his fingers are gripping too tightly and there is the realisation somewhere at the back of Billy's mind that they are both still clinging to the self-same (heavy) carrier bag. 

All the same, despite the lack of rose (tulip) petals and inoffensive classical music; Billy can't help but kiss back. His spare hand (it is holding his soaking jacket, but that doesn't render it completely useless) is wavering somewhere around Dom's waist, trying to work up the courage to touch, and then to grab, and then to hold on for dear life. 

This is _not_ what he expected from this evening. His fingers tighten on Dom's shirt.

"You still think this is a shit evening, Bills?" Dom says quietly, his fingers creeping round to the nape of Billy's neck once more, his breath hot against Billy's lips. 

Billy licks his lips. "I've had worse," he mumbles, because he doesn't know what to say, and, dammit, he wants to be kissing Dom again. 

Dom lets go of the carrier bag and kisses him again. The rain is running down their faces, off Dom's nose and onto Billy's.

Billy thinks that Dom must be able to read minds. 

Dom kisses him again, laughing, "Can we go home now, Bills? I'm fucking freezing. And you stink."

Now Billy _knows_ Dom must be able to read minds. "Fuck, yes." He grins (but mostly because to stop smiling would involve chopping his head off or something equally likely to spoil the mood), leans over and kisses Dom quickly. Fuck yes. "Let's go home."

**Epilogue: Sunday Morning**

Billy has always harboured a secret, special affection for Sunday mornings. 

The kind of affection he tends to reserve for chocolate hobnobs, birthday presents and occasionally—if the weather is good—surfing. 

Billy would—if pressed—generally admit that Sundays are his favourite day of the week, but it would take a very close friend (or an awful lot of alcohol and the promise of _more_ ) to worm out of him the reasons why he considers Sunday mornings to hold the most prestigious position of all of the days—that of being closest to Billy's heart. On Sundays, Billy can indulge himself by revelling in that warm moment caught forever in the hazy wilderness between sleeping and waking. He can cling to the last vestiges of sleep knowing that his accountant isn't going to ring, his agent isn't going to demand that he be somewhere for an early morning script meeting, he doesn't have to attend rehearsals or queue in the post office to send ever-more ridiculous parcels across the Atlantic (full of sherbet lemons and the _NME_ and cassette recordings of the top 40 from the late eighties—the earliest incarnation of Napster, Billy had joked when he'd found the box deep in Maggie's attic). Billy can wake up, slowly, luxuriously, wrapping the blanket around him and padding downstairs for tea and cornflakes, before shuffling back to bed with the paper, the TV remote, the radio and a packet of Golden Crunch biscuits.

That was, of course, until Dominic arrived and Billy's Sundays became a mixture of loud music, children's telly, playstation and _bouncing_. During the week, Dom couldn't be forced out of bed until the end of _This Morning_ , but come the weekend, he had been known to watch _Willo the Wisp_ on channel 4 before 7 a.m. One (fateful) morning, Dom had attempted to impart to Billy (without suitable preparation or quiet wakening) that _Ivor the Engine_ was about to start. After Billy had rugby tackled Dom to the ground and demonstrated quite a considerable talent at forcing (manhandling a tad excessively) Dom into the cupboard on the landing, there had had to be a _conversation_. All interested parties (through the negotiating medium of a cupboard door blocked shut with a laundry basket and a prone Billy) had agreed that launching yourself (with accompanying war cry, small wooden dagger and Billy's old school tie around your head) onto the bed and wailing into people's ears about small welsh trains whilst it was still dark outside, (and your target was deeply engaged in a dream about chocolate profiteroles) was particularly dangerous behaviour if your target was indeed proficient in Jeet Kune Do. After that particular incident, Dom had shown considerable restraint in waking Billy—having to fall back on the old standard of tipping a bucket of freezing water (complete with ice) over his head the subsequent week. Billy returned the favour by removing the plug from the TV and promising to leak it to the message boards that Dom sucked his thumb and couldn't sleep without his fluffy tiger.

Dom had made a noise that might well have sounded like "they'll write _fics_ " and the following Sunday (as Billy stumbled out of bed around ten), he'd found a steaming cup of tea on the bedside table. And _quiet_ from downstairs.

It had seemed like the perfect arrangement. Dom barricaded himself in the living room with Vernon Kay and a bag of haribo, whilst Billy slept on undisturbed upstairs. Then, at an hour more acceptable to those people (Billy) who didn't want to watch hours of old _Spiderman_ cartoons (Dom), a cup of tea would arrive silently on Billy's bedside table, and Billy would contemplate facing the day. Billy couldn't think of a single thing wrong with the plan.

Except that Billy's 'more acceptable hour' just seemed to be getting earlier and earlier. Billy _knew_ that Dom was up and about. Pottering round the kitchen and investigating whether you could eat a fried egg and ketchup sandwich before the bread dissolved. Making paper chains out of Billy's copy of the Stage and feigning ignorance when Billy protested he hadn't read it yet. Putting coffee grains down the sink and then yelling for Billy to come and have a go with the sink plunger as soon as Billy appeared outside the bedroom door. 

Really, Billy _had_ had to get up in order to prevent his house looking as if a tornado had ripped through it by Sunday lunchtime. Dom had a special talent when it came to creating mess, and it was up to Billy to make sure Dom didn't accidentally burn down the kitchen or flood the bathroom. (Billy had carefully neglected to point out to himself that it was in fact _him_ who was crap in the kitchen and could barely boil an egg without spilling water, and that it was _him_ who couldn't be trusted to take the rubbish out without splitting the bag and spilling tea bags and crisp packets all over the floor). So Billy had started to get up, just to keep an eye on him. No excuse at first, just plonked himself down in front of the computer and for want of something better to do, had put his own name and Dom's into Google. Choked over his coffee when he'd read his first porn. When he read his first wing fic, he'd made a noise that sounded like a car engine backfiring, and had had to get some loo roll to wipe the coffee off the monitor (they had _wings_ , and Dom's were small and white and _flappy_ , and Billy had laughed because clearly Dom's wings would be black and huge and imposing, not small and white and dainty, and what were these writers _on_?). And then the laptop had arrived and Billy and Dom had fought long and hard for supremacy of the sofa. 

But now? Things have changed. It's Sunday morning, and Billy is still in bed. He actually considers himself still to be asleep, despite the fact that if the situation should call for it (or the right one sprang up) he'd be fully capable of sustaining a conversation (but he'd have to open his eyes). Billy's brain may be ready to face the day ahead, but his body is currently indulging itself in the opinion that Sunday mornings are for _sleeping_ and too many of them have been wasted by waking up early and being alert and... indulging in _weekday behaviour_. Billy's brain is especially content in this frame of mind because it's freezing cold (Billy can hear the wind whistling past the window, and the _pitterpatter_ of rain on the pane) so he's shuffled so far down the bed and under the covers that only the tips of his ears and his hair have to face the cold morning air. At some point in the middle of the night he'd woken up with his feet hanging over the side of the bed, as cold as ice, but due to a particularly kind and unprecedented offer from a sleepy Dom to go the airing cupboard and get a blanket to put over them (not instigated by Billy in the _slightest_ ; him inching over under the duvet and resting freezing feet on warm calves was only a _hint_ of appropriate behaviour and certainly _not_ a demand for action; leaving icy, numb feet there until Dom stopped muttering obscenities under his breath and stomped off towards the bathroom was only a _suggestion_ that Billy required warming up and that Dom should be the man to do it). When Dom had stumbled back into the bedroom, mumbling half sentences, rubbing his eyes, muttering things under his breath that sounded quite a lot like _bloody servant_ and _waking me up in the middle of the bloody night_ and _cheeky sod_ , Billy had smiled into the darkness and pulled back the duvet. "Shut up, you idiot, and get back in here before all the cold air gets in."

At which point (probably tempted by the particularly sexy waggle of Billy's eyebrow across the darkened room, Billy told himself, without a hint of modesty—well, he'd been practicing in the mirror, so he deserved the accolade of best eyebrow waggler in the house), Dom had shaken his head, deposited the blanket haphazardly across Billy's prone form and jumped back into bed, resting his head on Billy's proffered arm before Billy had a chance to say another word. Billy couldn't help but smile, even before feeling the wet slide of Dom's tongue against his temple and the whispered _G'night, Bills_ , ghosting across his ear.

It's Sunday morning, and it's probably early. Billy isn't sure of the exact time because knowing that would have involved him having to open his eyes in order to get a look at the alarm clock on his bedside table. Considering that such a movement would invariably mean acknowledgement by Billy that he was no longer asleep, (frankly, that's not something Billy is willing to admit to at this particular juncture) Billy is happy enough just to accept the probability that it's still early. Billy is still asleep, damn it, and no amount of him being _awake_ is going to change that. For good measure (just to prove once and for all to himself that he is far away from the land of the living), he shuts his eyes tightly and attempts some kind of snoring noise. Damn it. Billy is sodding awake. Light (dark, sombre, filtered through rain and wind and clouds) is sneaking its way into the room and across Billy's face. He wants to roll over and prod Dom and get him to pad across the bedroom and shut the curtains to keep the day away, but the bed is empty apart from Billy. Whilst certain substantial, life-changing events have occurred recently (Dom edging his belongings from one end of the landing to the other, Billy having to get used to sharing his wardrobe space and not sleeping horizontally across the bed anymore, for starters), other things have remained the same as always. Sunday mornings see Dom creeping out of bed before dawn, stealing the blanket and hogging the best playstation controller. 

But other things _have_ changed. Billy is being coaxed into acknowledging the day by the rather tempting smells meandering their way up the stairs and wafting into the bedroom (Dom is a sly bugger and purposefully leaves all the doors open for this very reason) and by the intrusive beep of his laptop, which Dom had switched on just before wandering off downstairs. All this Billy considers relatively unfair. It is still _morning_ (a.m., before noon) and therefore it is perfectly acceptable that Billy should want to spend this time ensconced in sleep. Dom attempting to get round him by grilling bacon and making pots of coffee was sneaky, indefensible and (Billy hates to admit it, but sometimes you just have to take a deep breath and jump) one of the best parts of him and Dom being _post-rainy-snog_. (Defining just what their relationship _is_ is something that Billy is consciously avoiding at the present time). He can hear Dom coming up the stairs (slowly, so Dom must be carrying something, because Dom never goes anywhere _slowly_ if he can help it), and as Dom is thoroughly not empathising with Billy's emphatic desire to spend Sunday morning warm, cosy and _asleep_ , Billy closes his eyes and rolls over. 

Dom is haphazardly depositing the tray on the other bedside table (it's piled high with food, Billy notices, having opened one eye - despite his continued assurances to himself that he is, indeed, still asleep—this is merely a vague interruption to scheduled events and nothing to worry about, he tells himself) and Dom appears to be ignoring the fact that Billy is looking decidedly grumpy. Dom's kicking off his trainers, and continuing to ignore Billy's patented grumpy face. In fact, he's ignoring the fact to the degree that he's actually smiling and winking and sticking his tongue out. Bastard. 

Billy narrows his eyes. He's always been thoroughly unimpressed with people who woke up cheerful, and Dom is one of those thoroughly unfortunate characters that are not only cheerful, but also _enthusiastic_ and _loud_ and _bouncy_. Billy had found it bad enough when the extent of their early morning contact was over the kettle and the cafetiere or the teapot, but waking up to find Dom staring at Billy from the other side of the bed, _grinning_ , was even worse. And then (worse still) Dom would laugh, because he's always found Billy hilarious in the morning, and that's a fact that never fails to piss Billy off. 

Until, of course, Dom smiles and clambers into bed beside Billy, laughing and staring and shuffling closer until his toes tickle Billy's ankles. Now Billy's unenthusiastic about the speed and sheer ease with which Dom could make him _not_ grumpy first thing in the morning. Billy is grudgingly impressed. 

Dom's slid into bed, reached over and planted a kiss on Billy's sleepy brow, nabbed Billy's pillow to use as a backrest whilst Billy was engaged elsewhere (closing his eyes and wondering what life was like before Dom was allowed to kiss him, and Billy was allowed to kiss _him_ back), and dragged the laptop open onto his knee. Billy makes a sound that may well have been translatable as "mmumph" and he shuffles closer across the bed. Dom's fingers are messing with his hair, detangling the longer bits and his thumb is stroking the nape of Billy's neck.

"Morning," Dom smiles, and leans over (again) to plant a kiss on Billy's forehead. 

Billy opens (both) his eyes blearily, "Is it?" he asks, because mornings are never his best moment and he's not particularly keen on being woken up on his only day off. 

Dom grins. "Will you stop being such a grumpy arse if I give you your bacon sandwich?"

Billy considers this. He shuffles back on the bed. "Bacon?" he says eventually.

"Ketchup _and_ brown sauce." Dom says, proudly, looking up from the screen. "And coffee."

And Billy just can't pretend to be asleep any more, not when there is the promise of bacon sarnies and fresh coffee (waving around somewhere his nose, actually, sod Dom and his diversionary wake-Billy-up-when-it's-barely-light tactics). Not when being awake means that he gets to kiss _back_. So he makes some noise which Dom is supposed to interpret as him waking up under duress, and reaches across Dom for the sandwich.

Dom, however, is grinning at him, and holding the sandwich somewhere just out of reach. Somewhere above the bedside table. "What's the magic word, Billy?" Dom asks, and Billy narrows his eyes. 

"Bugger off you piece of early morning shit and give me my bacon sandwich before I kill you?" Billy says, all in a rush, and reaches for the sandwich, clambering up the bed and holding one hand out for the plate. 

"Perfect," Dom says, and he hands the plate over with a kiss to Billy's temple. 

"Good." Billy says, grudgingly, pulling the duvet up under his armpits and taking a huge bite. _Perfect_ indeed, with crispy bacon, and the right thickness of bread, and the exact amount of brown sauce conducive to excellent Sunday morning bacon sandwiches. "Thank you," he says, after a moment, through a mouthful of bacon and fresh white loaf. It comes out sounding a bit like _mumph_. 

"You're welcome," Dom says, presumably having learnt to interpret Billy-speak long ago. Dom reaches for the laptop and pulls it onto his lap, tapping a few keys to log on and booting up the internet. He switches on the radio for Billy, re-tuning it to Radio 4 so that Billy can listen to _the Archers_. Billy shuffles back against the pillows, wondering what his Sundays _used_ to be like before Dom came along and made everything _right._

Billy holds his hand out for his coffee cup, and Dom passes him his mug (without looking up from the screen, where he's engaged in reading something that looks very long, very dense and very much like the words 'Dom' and 'Billy' are central to the main plot). 

He takes a gulp, because Dom makes the _best_ coffee in the mornings, and cradles the mug in one hand as he wipes the last of the brown sauce from his plate with one long finger. He relaxes against the pillows, listening as Brian, Debbie and Adam become embroiled in yet another family farming dispute on the radio, watching as Dom scans down the page, his brows lifting in incredulity at random intervals, a smile curling across his face as he moves from chapter to chapter. Billy might not be able to define this _thing_ ; this relationship they're embarking on, but he knows one thing for sure: he bloody loves this man. 

Billy loves Dom even when he's sticking his tongue out at the screen and turning to face Billy and waggling his eyebrows, and he especially loves Dom when Dom's slinging his arm around Billy's shoulder, inching Billy further across the bed and closer to Dom. _Especially_ when Billy's lifting his face up towards Dom in gentle protestation at being shifted from the warm spot to the cold spot, and Dom's grinning and shutting him up by leaning down and _breathing_ across Billy's open mouth. And then Dom's kissing him, and he tastes like coffee and haribo sweets and Sunday mornings. He's kissing Billy, and murmuring _love you, you idiot_ , and Billy's smiling against Dom's mouth and kissing him back. 

He's got a whole new reason for loving Sunday mornings now. 

_The End._


End file.
